The Impacts of the SBCC approach and Information About Child Anemic Status on Infant Anemia: Experimental Evidence From Ghana

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to evaluate/investigate: (1) the impact of Social Behavioral Change Communication (SBCC) program implemented by Ghana Health Service (GHS) in collaboration with World Food Programme (WFP), (2) the effect of information provision about child's anemic status to the mother/caregiver on child's anemia status, and (3) the combined effect of the two interventions. METHODS: Data were from our own surveys conducted in August 2020 and February-March 2021 in Ashanti Region, Ghana. The sample size for the balanced panel are 238 mother-child pairs, with baseline ages of children ranging from 6 to 18 months. Eleven health facilities/Child Welfare Clinics were selected, six for the SBCC program and five for controls. The CWCs for each category (SBCC versus non-SBCC), were further grouped into two. Mothers/caregivers of one group were given objective information on her child's anemic status while mothers in the other group did not receive such information. Linear regression model was used to assess the effects of the interventions on children's Hb status. RESULTS: After controlling for pre-intervention status of the outcome variables, children or mothers/caregivers who received both SBCC and information on anemia status of their children had the highest mean increase in Hb (+0.81g/dL; 95% CI: 0.33, 1.29) and lowest rate of anemia (−28.8%; 95% CI: −48.3, −9.3). Provision of only SBCC to mothers/caregivers significantly improved Hb of children (+0.49g/dL; 95% CI: −0.01, 0.97) but not anemic status (P = 0.28). Likewise, there was no significant impact of provision of information only on Hb levels (P = 0.28) and anemic status (P = 0.42). CONCLUSIONS: SBCC intervention significantly increased infants’ Hb levels while provision of information on anemia alone did not significant impact on infants’ anemia status. However, conducting both interventions significantly increased infants’ Hb level and decreased infants’ anemia status, indicating that the two interventions have synergic effect. FUNDING SOURCES: Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) Grant Number 20K20575.